“Yes,” Arran grumbled. “Get her out of here. Her mortal scent is growing pungent.”
Xenia emanated a mixture of fear and excitement, tangy with a hint of peppery sweetness. Nearly as much of a tell as that small smile she’d given Cael.
She kept her head bowed as Cael approached. “Let’s go,” he snapped as he dragged her, as gently as possible, into the hallway.
The office door shut with an echoing thud, and down the hall, Erik and Phidion rounded the corner out of sight.
Xenia’s head popped up and she opened her mouth.
He clapped his hand over it. “Not here.”
He pulled her through the dark halls, then down the back stairs to the servant’s quarters. “Which one?”
She raised a shaky hand, and he towed her into the last room at the end of the hallway. He cast a wind-shield around the walls to muffle their voices.
He leaned his head back against the door, staring at her from underneath slitted lids and trying to slow his frenzied heart.
She paused by her small bed, cheeks flushed, her breathing just as erratic as his own.
Her emerald eyes—that unforgettable, alluring color, Cael’s favorite in the entire world—shone with teary relief. And apprehension.
His chest cracked open.
“Say something,” she whispered.
He strode forward and grasped her soft face between his hands.
“You reckless littlefool,” he growled.
Then crushed his mouth to hers.
Relief pounded through Xenia,a heady release, as she whimpered into Cael’s mouth.
She’d found him. Sure, it was in the most roundabout and dangerous way possible, the consequences of which hadn’t even begun to be felt.
But she didn’t care about any of that right now. Not with his hands and mouth on her.
Cael hoisted her up, wrapped her thighs around his waist, and slammed her into the wall. She broke their kiss, worried someone might have heard.
“Wind-shield,” he croaked, his face so achingly close to hers. Everything she’d wanted since Rhamnos. Since far earlier than that, if she were being honest. “No one will hear.”
The firm evidence of how much he’d missed her dragged along her center.
She had half a mind to scream at him. If he wanted her as badly as she could feel he did, why had he tried to send her away?
Her anger dissolved into rapturous shudders as he pressed soft kisses to her jaw, whispering her name like a prayer against her skin.
He moved back to her mouth, then stroked his tongue along the seam. She opened for him, tangling her fingers in his hair and tugging at the soft tendrils at his nape.
High Gods,thiswas why she hadn’t stayed on that ship. She would’ve risked a thousand dangerous treks across the continent for just this single taste of him.
His fingertips trailed beneath her skirt, meeting her bare flesh far too briefly before he tensed and dropped her.
Her feet fell to the floor as she panted, undone by his kiss, and he pressed a fist against the wall above her head. “We can’t,” he eked out, eyes squeezed shut as if he didn’t dare look at her. “They’ll scent it.”
She reached up to grab his chin. “Cael.”
His eyes popped open, and she was skewered by the fear and longing in their thundercloud depths.
